Pragmatism for Medical Ethics

Abstract

Pragmatism writ large - a banner that unites philosophers as diverse as Wittgenstein, Foucault, Rorty, and Latour - aims to help us unlearn the metaphysics and epistemologies of the past by re-describing age-old philosophical obsessions in down-to-earth, pragmatic terms. Heterogeneity, contexts and historical contingency are stressed. Like homeopaths, pragmatists prescribe a medicine that contains infinitely small doses of philosophy to cure us from dreadful philosophical diseases. Their drug has proven strong effects. Under the weight of historical contingencies, all that was solid in philosophy - foundationalism, essentialism, dualistic thinking - melts into air.